Green light for violence?
With car assaults on protesters rising, Tennessee’s mercy on drivers comes out
Hailing from different cities in Tennessee, Shiloh Barnat Goodman and Peter Capretto have never met. Yet they share a growing trauma among protesters. Each was hit by an SUV while helping to marshal a demonstration against racism.
The incidents occurred more than three years apart, encompassing the lifespan of a phenomenon that’s grown rapidly despite proving deadly. A California man died in June after being hit by a car at a demonstration, as did a Seattle protester July 4.
Capretto, a religion professor at Belmont University in Nashville, said the reason for the uptick in incidents is simple: Cause and effect.
“Politicians have been laying the ground work to give citizens the green light to enact violence against protesters,” he said, “For years.”
Barnat Goodman points to police and prosecutors, who she says perpetuate the problem.
A design director for the fundraising arm of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Barnat Goodman has been involved in activism since youth. Still, she said she was taken aback by the police response when an SUV drove into her, her 16-year-old daughter and two college students at a Memphis Black Lives Matter protest in June.
Paramedics took Erin Dempsey, 22, to a hospital where she said she was treated for deep-tissue damage. The next day, Barnat Goodman said she went to a clinic after waking up sore.
Barnat Goodman had other concerns at the scene. “It was unsafe, for not just protesters but anyone in the area,” she said.
Videos and photos show around 15 minutes pass before police take keys from the driver, Anthony Marcuzzo, or remove him from behind the wheel of his SUV.
An 18-year-old from Germantown, Marcuzzo was released in Memphis’ Cooper-young neighborhood with citations for improper passing and driving without a license.
A social media firestorm erupted, demanding his arrest — and that of a different driver who accelerated towards protesters less than an hour later.
The following evening, Marcuzzo was arrested and released without bond, charged with one count of reckless driving and four counts of reckless endangerment — misdemeanor offenses based on disregard, not premeditation. He has no prior record.
Assaults involving vehicles, which are routinely considered deadly weapons in Tennessee, are typically felonies, three defense lawyers said.
The other driver, Beau Albauer, 26, was later charged with reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, a felony. Albauer did not hit anyone.
But on his apparent Facebook account, an inflammatory message about protesters was posted that evening. His lawyer declined to comment.
Marcuzzo’s lawyer Mark Mesler said his client’s charges fit the evidence. Social media is not relevant to Marcuzzo’s case, Mesler said.
A truck atop apparent hate speech was among posts liked by an Instagram account with Marcuzzo’s name and likeness, for which the sole information in the bio section was the handle for the custom truck account that posted the image.
“I think when all of the facts come out, that it will be clear that Mr. Marcuzzo’s behavior was not politically motivated and I think that’s why he’s been charged with misdemeanors,” Mesler said.
A sworn police statement cites surveillance video, on which a detective said Marcuzzo can be seen slowly approaching the demonstrators before driving into them. The protesters, and the drivers of the vehicles Marcuzzo passed just prior, said they have no question he acted with purpose.
Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said in June that the charges in the two cases were filed independently of each other, “based on extensive reviews of the available evidence, circumstances, witness statements and videos from each.”
Citing their pending status, Weirich declined to comment further regarding the extent of surveillance video reviewed and the assertion of a criminal defense attorney that Marcuzzo was awarded a leniency rarely granted Black defendants from Memphis.
Prosecutorial discretion has been on the mind of State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-memphis. He said the Tennessee Black Caucus plans to research a domestic terrorism bill that could “energize” investigations into whether a driver had a goal to inflict harm or intimidate.
Judges are yet to rule on the Memphis cases. But Barnat Goodman said her takeaway is simple.
“The system works as designed to protect people like this,” she said of Marcuzzo. “And that encourages the behavior.”
Proposed protections—for drivers
Explicit encouragement of vehicle attacks on protests can be seen in jokes, memes and other messaging — partly inspired by legislation proposed in Tennessee, said Ari Weil, a University of Chicago researcher who studies vehicle-ramming incidents and the propaganda surrounding them.
The proposed legislation sought immunity in civil court for drivers who injure protesters in roadways.
Similar bills were introduced in a handful of states. None became law.
But the bills bolstered the bravado of people with political animus towards protests nonetheless, said Weil.
“They really lived on in the imagination of the right,” he said, “as if they gave them, these failed bills, the right to run into protesters from a legal stance.”
When the Tennessee House civil justice sub-committee considered the bill in March 2017, Capretto testified on his experience at a protest, a few days into the Trump administration in late January of that year.
An SUV struck Capretto and three other neon-clad safety volunteers as they were in a crosswalk, with the pedestrian right of way, aiding the movement of protesters who carried messages of solidarity with Muslims and chanted against Trump, he said.
Eyewitness video of the incident hasn’t emerged and Metro Nashville police did not mention surveillance video in an account released two days later, which says officers near the site “did not see the incident occurring until the group of protesters jumped on the hood of the vehicle.”
The police account places the 68-year-old white male driver as the victim in the incident, citing his claim that “protesters surrounded his car and began beating on the windows of his vehicle with their fists.”
In his testimony, Capretto said the description was false — and that he’d been shocked to learn police opted not to press charges.
“The driver...was able to erase the overwhelming evidence and testimony of citizens whose lives he threatened, simply by purporting that he was in fear for his safety,” Capretto said.
Jack Willey, who was alongside Capretto, told The Tennessean that the driver continued inching towards them and then accelerated. He also asserted that the police did not interview dozens of eyewitnesses present.
By the end of the next week, leading conservative lawmakers introduced Tennessee’s bill seeking financial immunity for motorists, if their actions were not “willful or wanton.”
The move made Tennessee the second state, after North Dakota, to consider protection specific to drivers who hit demonstrators — until the bill died in the sub-committee hearing at which Capretto testified.
He never learned the identity of the driver who he said carried him and three others approximately 200 feet as they yelled at him to stop. “We literally pleaded for our lives on the hood of his car,” Capretto said.
He also never got an answer to the question he says he asked the driver once the vehicle stopped: “What is wrong with you?”
Enthusiasm across right-wing spectrum
Weil, the researcher, said the rise in incidents has roots across a spectrum of right-wing influences. “It’s not just a fringe, far-right issue. I think we have an issue where folks encourage and make it seem like these actions are OK,” he said.
Drivers in the recent spate of attacks include a Virginia man who self-identified as a Ku Klux Klan leader and Confederate propagandist. But it’s rare for drivers to have distinct white supremacist membership, Weil said.
Some people are more loosely connected to farright circles, he said, and enthusiasm for driving into people demonstrating doesn’t end there.
It’s expressed on the right generally, Weil said, pointing to a social media post by conservative commentator Matt Walsh, in response to the recent wave of protests.
In a tweet liked 9,000 times, Walsh asserted the legitimacy of killing protesters who block traffic, vandalize a car or try to assault a driver.
That’s not how the law works, said Jonathan Cooper, president of the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
“Even if a driver is completely surrounded, the law does not permit them to use a vehicle to harm another person who is not harming or threatening that driver,” Cooper said, regarding roadblocks.
As for claims of self-defense, Cooper said that while Tennessee law recognizes the “limited right” of citizens to use force against another, “It must be proportionate to the harm faced, and there must be a reasonable belief such force is immediately necessary.”
To suggest otherwise, Cooper said, “is simply foolish.”
An assortment of law enforcement agencies around the country — not including any metropolitan Tennessee agencies — have recently faced scandals regarding similar sentiments shared by officers on social media.
Hours after a car plowed into two protesters on a closed Seattle highway, killing one, a local sheriff ’s detective posted a meme featuring the phrase “All Lives Splatter,” alongside an illustration of three people being run over by an SUV, the Washington Post reported.
In June, an Iowa police chief, a Missouri police chief and officers in at least Oklahoma, Oregon and West Virginia allegedly commented on running over or shooting protesters who block the road, a review of local media reports shows.
Charlottesville organizer: ‘It’s legal’
Department of Justice lawyers also noted a meme in their prosecution of James Alex Fields Jr.
While in Charlottesville, Virginia for the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally — organized in response to plans to remove a Confederate statute — Fields killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured at least 30 others when he drove into a multi-racial crowd of counter-protesters.
A few months prior on Instagram, Fields twice shared a meme depicting a car driving through a crowd with the words: “I’m late for work,” court records on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s warrant to review his social media show.
A rally organizer also erroneously claimed, prior to the attack, that “driving over protesters blocking roadways isn’t an offense”, referencing North Carolina, which proposed a near-carbon copy of Tennessee’s bill, and “a few other states”, according to a federal civil suit.
Political leadership in Tennessee
Five months before the attack in Charlottesville, Tennessee Trump supporters celebrated a similar interpretation of the state’s driver immunity bill, according to Rep. Hardaway.
At a March 2017 hearing, Hardaway read two comments he said were made regarding those who might protest during a Nashville Trump rally.
“Wonder how many protesters will be ran over since the new law,” Hardaway said, reading the comment out loud to bill sponsor Rep. Matthew Hill, R-jonesborough.
“I’m glad it’s legal to run protesters over here,” Hardaway said, reading aloud another comment.
“Any number of tweets and messages (cite) your bill as what their privilege would be,” Hardaway added.
Hill said he didn’t endorse or condone the comments. “Some people are trying to be funny. Some people are being silly and quite frankly stupid,” he added.
“I don’t ever want anyone to be run over or to be hit,” Hill said.
Capretto doubts his sincerity.
“Any politician who denies the way that their actions shape the political behavior of others — it is not
only naive, it is deliberately misleading,” Capretto said of Hill, who has been in office since 2004. “This is how leadership works.”
Hill did not respond to two requests for comment on what message he would share with drivers who may be under the false impression that they have a legal right to strike a protester in a roadway.
He also remained silent when, five months after defending the bill in the Tennessee House, the deadly Charlottesville attack occurred, Johnson City Press reported.
Hill, who is running for re-election with an endorsement from Gov. Bill Lee, recently voted against the removal of a bust of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee state capitol building.
Hardaway said the uptick in vehicle attacks is part of the state’s legacy. “It’s disappointing, but I’m not surprised. We gave the world the KKK,” he said.
Gauging motive
Vehicles hit protesters at least 66 times between May 27 and July 6, according to Weil.
Law enforcement accounts for seven drivers, he said. Of the 59 civilians, Weil said he had sufficient information to assess the intent of 23.
He deemed 19 incidents malicious.
The intentional attacks are part of a “movement, counter-movement” dynamic, Weil said. Since they’re happening in relationship to protests that are often spontaneous, he said attacks aren’t always premeditated.
To gauge motive, Weil said, “You’ve got to look at each case and try and understand some of what was going on with that person beforehand. Is this somebody who may have been involved in some spheres online that encouraged this...or just unfortunately had a lack of common sense and the rage that they were gonna go through people?”
Hardaway recently cosponsored a bill that addressed road rage, which he said is distinguished by a lack of impulse control. When a person seeks to harm, intimidate and/or elicit fear that’s a different beast, he said: Terrorism.
“We have to call it what it is or we’re not going to be inclined to deal with it in the manner that it takes to deter it,” said Hardaway.
Just as the bill he recently co-sponsored defined road-rage, drive-by shooting, shooting into a crowd and shooting at buildings “community terrorism,” Hardaway said domestic terrorism needs to be defined in state statue and assigned strong penalties, like permanently losing a driver’s license.
“If you can’t be trusted once behind the wheel of a car,” he said of drivers convicted of reckless endangerment, “Why are we taking a weapon that can be worse than a gun. Why are you able to leave and get in that vehicle and if you wanted to, take up right where you left off?”
That’s irrational, Hardaway said. “If they think they’ll get a slap on the wrist, they think it’s well worth it,” he said.
‘I had to get somewhere’
According to police, Marcuzzo drove into an opposing traffic lane to pass a car between his SUV and the protest.
Alice Miller said she heard him coming and then watched the incident unfold. A retired school teacher who supports the movement, Miller was driving behind the protest after purchasing water she’d hoped to give the crowd of people who had been marching for an hour.
“I’m hearing this truck push through and pass me,” Miller said. “Then he just continues to storm through, yelling ‘‘Get out of the way, (expletive) and revving his engine and they’re putting their hands up,” Miller said. “And he hits them.”
“He could’ve taken his left. He could have diverted everything,” she said.
Marcuzzo stopped after Erin Dempsey clung to his side mirror for approximately 20 feet, according to the affidavit.
A Facebook live stream an activist began minutes later captured much of the aftermath. Portions with multiple speakers talking at once are difficult to discern.
But some statements, including from Marcuzzo and Dempsey can be heard.
“He was stopped,” Dempsey said. “I put my arms out to try and stop him and he accelerated into me,” she said, displaying a red mark on her forearm. “He saw me.”
Marcuzzo was still sitting in his SUV when Rev. Edith Love addressed him directly.
“Young man,” she said. “Yes ma’am,” he responds. “Why,” said Love. He replied he had a place to be. At another point, he said, “I had to get somewhere.”
Citing attorney-client privilege, Mesler said he couldn’t divulge why Marcuzzo did not take an alternate route upon seeing protesters in the street.
Mesler said that he had not reviewed surveillance video cited by police or dashcam and body camera video recently sent him by the district attorney’s office.
Tipster demands transparency
Michael Knight, a Cooper-young homeowner and Navy veteran who works in information technology, says additional surveillance footage — from nearby streets in the moments leading up to the incident — should also have been collected.
When MPD announced officers were seeking additional information, Knight says he called the Crimestoppers tip line as directed, to tell them he saw an SUV matching Marcuzzo’s driving near the protest prior that evening.
In addition to seven “Skycop” cameras on major thoroughfares, police also have direct access to dozens of additional cameras through the Cooper-young Neighborhood Watch, funded through multiple City of Memphis grants as well as private donations, according to online posts by the group.
City guidelines stipulate privately funded cameras must be compatible with MPD’S monitoring system, allowing the department’s Real Time Crime Center 24hour access.
The DA’S office and MPD both encouraged calls to the tipline. Neither provided comment regarding whether Neighborhood Watch video was reviewed, citing the cases as pending.
“If he’s caught on camera...going up side streets...then that needs to come out,” Knight said. Or if police didn’t collect footage from before the incident, he added, “That just proves all the protesters right.”
Video and photos taken in the immediate aftermath show Marcuzzo in a mud-splattered SUV with a lifted suspension and hitch attached to the back.
On the rear window, a large decal reads “901 standards”.
‘(K)ill (expletive) + Jews’
To Weil’s point, that it’s necessary to understand whether a person’s prior activity overlapped with online encouragement of driving into demonstrations, Mesler said he wasn’t equipped to comment on his client’s social media history and would not advise Marcuzzo to comment either.
“I don’t mean this in any way negatively, but it’s not relevant to what I’m doing. It might be relevant if the prosecutor is trying to prove some intent,” Mesler said. “But not for, at least at this point, my defense.”
Marcuzzo’s father also had no comment, Mesler said. In a July 17 review, Marcuzzo’s father’s apparent Facebook account followed Matt Walsh and multiple pages that have expressed enthusiasm for driving into demonstrations.
Reviewed after he drove into the protest, Marcuzzo’s apparent social media accounts were private. An Instagram account with his name and likeness had @901_standards_pt.2 listed in its bio July 17.
Before the inquiry to Marcuzzo’s lawyer about social media, the @901_standards_pt.2 account was public, featuring truck photos.
When it was documented by The Commercial Appeal on July 2: A picture of a truck atop graffiti that appears to demand the deaths of Black and Jewish people, posted March 4, was among photos shared. Some letters in the apparent phrase ‘(K)ill (expletives) + Jews’ are cropped by the edges of the image.
The post was liked by 42 accounts, including the account with Marcuzzo’s name and likeness. No other posts included similar language when the account was reviewed.
Little insight can be gleaned from other publicly available information. In his 2019-2020 high school yearbook, Marcuzzo donned a Trump t-shirt in his school photo and appears to be in a Future Farmers of America group picture without names.
‘Why aren’t you arresting him?’
Before additional officers arrived and began an onscene investigation, two officers stood at Marcuzzo’s driver’s side door. As the minutes went by questions mounted.
In a livestream, people can be heard saying: “You’re not writing a report or getting his name?” “Why aren’t you arresting him?”
“Y’all ain’t asking for no driver’s license?”
“Are they going to do anything or just stand there?” “If this was a person of color, they’d have him in the back of the police car right now.”
The name tag of one officer wearing a neon traffic vest was obscured and he did not provide his name to protesters who were livestreaming.
Neither he or the other officer, Benjamin Huff, offer any answers. At one point, Huff asked the small crowd to move from the side of the vehicle to the street in front of the SUV. They said that they would not, and Huff can be heard saying, “So we can do our job.”
Rev. Love admonished both officers and an activist said he was calling the police director’s cell phone. A few minutes later, a commanding officer arrived.
“He’s still behind the wheel of a deadly weapon that he just used,” Love said. “And someone could have gotten killed.”
MPD Lt. Karen Rudolph said no new information on the investigation was available since an initial Facebook post. A spokesperson for the police union said he could not comment because the police association has not been engaged in the protest or spoken to anyone regarding it.
A few days later, when protesters reconvened for a press conference with Shelby County commissioner Tami Sawyer, Barnat Goodman said she wanted to know why an officer who has been accused of misconduct would be put in charge of the safety of people protesting misconduct.
In a federal civil suit involving a 2015 incident, Huff was accused of accosting a Black man who was pumping gas, Cartrell Williams, putting him into a chokehold and slamming him to the ground where he was handcuffed. Then, the suit alleges, “Huff decided to step on Mr. Williams and pin Mr. Williams with his foot as if Mr. Williams was some type of animal or trophy.”
Huff claimed immunity and contended Williams’ was “not entitled to any recovery” because his “own conduct constituted the sole proximate cause of any injuries”, according to court records.
In 2016, Huff was suspended without pay for 30 days and required to undergo sensitivity training, according to Fox13. The suit settled in 2017 and was dismissed.
“If an officer was assigned to the area who has previously received corrective action due to a policy violation, then that officer has been cleared for duty; that officer is expected to do his or her job as any other officer,” said Rudolph.
Multiple drivers
The incident was neither the first nor the last time a white, male motorist accelerated towards people in the same protest.
First, video shows the driver of a silver Nissan make a U-turn to speed back towards protesters who had redirected him moments prior, as chants of “Black Lives Matter” resounded in the background. On his return, the man stopped his car beside a Black woman to whom he said, “Watch your (expletive) mouth,” before multiple protesters pointed him to a side street he then sped down.
Around 30 minutes after the incident with Marcuzzo, 26-year-old Beau Albauer was captured on video accelerating towards protesters. An initial encounter between Albauer and protesters who redirected him from the crowd was livestreamed a few minutes prior.
According to the affidavit, three people said they jumped out of the way as he sped back towards them. Video shows Albauer before he stops and cops swiftly remove him from the vehicle.
He’s previously been cited for reckless driving and was initially released on the scene with a citation. That night, a Commercial Appeal reporter observed a post on a Facebook account with Albauer’s name and likeness, as it began to go viral.
Addressed to protesters, it read “Your lucky you didn’t end up as a good (sic) Ornament.” The post has since been deleted and police arrested Albauer two days later. He was charged with three felony counts of reckless endangerment and a misdemeanor charge of reckless driving, with a $2,000 bond set.
Albauer’s lawyer declined to comment on the case. The same firm represents another driver, William Day, whose prosecution is also underway. “He did nothing wrong. He was assaulted. Look at the video,” attorney Leslie Ballin said.
A few days after the string of incidents in Cooperyoung, Day drove a Ford F-150 towards activists blocking the street in front of a restaurant, Porch & Parlor, part of a restaurant group under fire for alleged racist practices. The restaurant group’s co-owner has since launched an investigation and apologized for “damage, hurt or harm encountered by patrons and current and former employees.”
Video shows activists facing the vehicle before it slowly accelerates. The truck drives into them, continues to move forward and confrontation breaks out. Ballin did not address why his client did not take an alternative route upon seeing pedestrians in the street.
Day, whose record includes prior reckless driving charges, faces two misdemeanors and posted his $1,000 bond the following day.
‘It isn’t done that way for everyone’
As the cases wind through court, the possibility of walking away with a clean record and without serving a sentence, whether the finding is guilty or not, remains a possibility for at least Marcuzzo. People without certain prior convictions are eligible for diversion.
His case shows, “the way it should be done for everyone,” said veteran criminal defense lawyer Michael Working. “Not just white kids from Germantown. And it isn’t done that way for everyone,” he said. “It’s certainly never the Black kid from South Memphis undercharged.”
Data reported by law enforcement agencies to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation show that among 662 offenses of any type involving a vehicle categorized as a weapon in Shelby County in 2019, nearly 98% were charged Aggravated Assault.
Working was at the early June protest when events unfolded near his office in Cooper Young. “I can’t remember something so blatant, with so many red flags being so undercharged,” he said of Marcuzzo.
A legislative strategy
As for possible solutions, Weil said he hopes where it’s appropriate, prosecutors bring serious charges. “A decent amount of these have been malicious,” he said. “Some truly are accidents and don’t need to be charged.”
Regarding intentional vehicle attacks, Hardaway said the state assembly’s Black Caucus will research a domestic terrorism bill soon. “Our law enforcement and our justice system has got to respond now,” Hardaway said. “It’s been growing over the past few years as a means of intimidation and as a means of the white supremacists to be able to dampen the constitutional rights of Americans,” he said.
Hardaway also pointed to upcoming elections in determining the fate of any future efforts at deterrence — and the direction Tennessee takes from the current political turning point.
“What we’re determining now is the foundation for a new order,” he said. “We’re either gonna have it with folks who are tolerant, who can get along,” he said of the future. “Or we’re gonna have...dangerous human beings who have disdain, disregard and no respect for any and everybody who doesn’t fit their definition of whiteness.”
Dima Amro, John Beifuss, Laura Testino and Micaela Watts contributed to this report.
Sarah Macaraeg is an award-winning journalist who writes investigations, features and the occasional breaking news story for The Commercial Appeal. She welcomes tips and can be reached on Twitter @seramak or at sarah.macaraeg@commercialappeal.com.